Analysis of Biden's remarks at the emergency NATO meetings in Brussels

Biden Says U.S. And NATO ‘Would Respond’ If Russia Uses Chemical Weapons In Ukraine
Russian use of chemical weapons in Ukraine “would trigger a response in kind” from the U.S. and other members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, President Joe Biden said Thursday, adding that “the nature of the response would depend on the nature of the use” of the weapons.

Biden also told reporters following a meeting with NATO leaders in Brussels to discuss Russia’s invasion of Ukraine that he believes Russia should be removed from the Group of 20, but the decision is also up to other G-20 nations. Biden said it was a topic of conversation during his meeting with world leaders, and that if Indonesia and other countries disagree with removing Russia, then Ukraine should be able to attend G-20 meetings as well.

Biden also said he made clear to Chinese President Xi Jinping in their conversation last Friday that the U.S. and Europe would ensure there were financial consequences for China if it aided Russia in its war with Ukraine: “China’s future is much more economically tied to the west than it is to Russia.”

On Thursday, Biden and other NATO leaders announced coordinated sanctions targeting 328 members of the Duma, the Russian government’s lower house of parliament, as well as the entity as a whole. NATO also sanctioned Herman Gref, the CEO of the Russian state-owned bank Sberbank, as well as billionaire oligarch Gennady Timchenko, 47 Russian defense companies and 17 board members of the privately-owned Russian bank Sovocombank.

Biden said he called Thursday’s NATO meeting to confirm that its members would continue to sanction Russia for the foreseeable future.

“Sanctions never deter,” Biden said at the press conference. “The maintenance of sanctions, increasing the pain … for the remainder of this entire year, that’s what will stop [Russian President Vladimir Putin].